Second Chance
by Enchanter468
Summary: Alternate take on Phase 50 and part of 49.  What if, after the Second Battle of Jachin Due, Fllay had been recovered and revived?  How would Kira and the other characters react?  If you hate KxF, you don't want to read this.
1. The Burning Stars

Disclaimer: I don't own _Gundam SEED_ or any of its characters.

It is not my desire to irritate anyone with my stories. So, if the concept of Kira and Fllay together nauseates you, simply click on the "Back" button now. Still here? Okay. This first chapter is mostly just my way of introducing Rau as the villain and getting in a bit of the conflict between the _Dominion_ and the _Archangel._ It also allows me to get some MxM content in there, as I love that couple too.

**Second Chance**

Part 1: The Burning Stars

Mu La Flaga brought the Strike's shield up, blocking the particle beam. Raising his own beam rifle, he put a shot through the cockpit of the attacking GuAIZ; the sleek machine hung in space for a moment before exploding. He was about to turn back and check on the Astray team when an all-too-familiar sensation filled his mind.

_Rau._

"Mu!" The voice on the com system sounded pleased. "I'm glad you could make it. You've played such a part in this drama; I'd hate for you to miss the final act." Mu brought the Strike about just as a beam shot streaked toward him. Blocking it with his shield, he traced the shot back to a dark grey suit hanging in the vacuum several hundred meters away.

While the immense machine was obviously a G-weapon, it was unlike anything Mu had seen before. The machine wielded a massive beam rifle in its right hand, and a cannon-equipped shield was fixed to its left hand. But the thing that drew an observer's gaze was the large, star-shaped object on the mobile suit's back. It seemed the masked commander had gotten himself a new toy.

_It won't make a difference; he's not getting away this time._

"It ends here," Mu said, his voice taut with grim determination. He locked onto the new G-weapon and released a blast from his beam rifle.

* * *

Inside the cockpit of the dark suit, Rau Le Creuset grinned broadly. The Hawk had no idea how right he was. When the Strike opened fire, Rau simply raised his shield and blocked the shot. Shifting his focus momentarily, the masked pilot flipped a few toggles on the control panel. 

The ZGMF-X13A Providence was equipped with an MA-MV05A composite armed shield system, with two electron cannons and a beam saber built into the shield itself, the standard CIWS and, of course, the MA-M221 Judicium beam rifle, but its deadliest weapon by far was the DRAGOON system mounted on its back. As Rau keyed in the appropriate command, the eleven funnel-shaped pods launched from the array on his mobile suit's back and swarmed the Strike. Connected wirelessly to the Providence's central computer, each self-propelled drone possessed the same electron cannons mounted in the shield and rifle, as well as a scattershot function. Moving as one, they surrounded the woefully outmatched Strike and opened fire.

* * *

The star-shaped device on the G-weapon's back seemed to break apart; something like a dozen funnel-shaped objects shot off into space and moved toward the Strike. Mu was tempted to simply ignore them and focus on the mobile suit, but as he locked onto it with his beam rifle, he noticed the funnels orienting themselves around his own machine, and remembered his Zero's wired gunbarrels. 

_Shit!_

Mu pulled the Strike into a defensive position a split-second before he was fired on from all directions, electron beams tearing the vacuum all around him. A lesser pilot would have been killed instantly, but Mu wasn't known as the Hawk of Endymion for nothing, and the Strike managed to weave back and forth, avoiding the fire from the pods and blocking a shot from Rau's beam rifle with its shield. The drones retreated for a moment, and the two mobile suits faced each other. On his left, Mu saw an M1 Astray and a GuAIZ run each other through and explode. A _Nelson_-class battleship blew apart behind Rau's G-weapon, the mobile suit a demonic silhouette against the flames.

"Is this what you want?" Mu demanded, indicating the carnage all around them.

"Oh, it's not what _I_ want!" The voice coming from the com-link sounded amused. On his CIS, Mu noticed the drones closing in again. "This is humanity's wish, humanity's dream, humanity's _sin!_" At that moment, the pods sprayed the Strike with beam fire again. Dodging as well as he could, Mu couldn't completely avoid damage. One of the shots caught the Strike's beam rifle, blasting the weapon into dust. "Being stronger than others, having the advantage over others, being above others!"

"Stop this madness!" Mu shouted, drawing the Strike's beam saber and attacking. The dark suit raised its shield arm, extending a massive beam saber of its own, and the two machines crossed blades.

"Competition, envy, hate! Cursing each other's existence! That is mankind in its purest form!" The Strike lashed out with its saber, and the Providence easily deflected the blow. As the ZAFT suit swung its own saber, the Strike swerved to the left, sidestepping the attack.

"Is that insane characterization all you have to say? It will never come true!" The mobile suits broke apart for a moment. Mu was so fixated on Rau that he failed to notice the DRAGOON pods surrounding the Strike again. When Rau spoke next, it was with an emotion one could almost describe as pride.

"It's too late, Mu. I am the result; the end product of mankind's insanity. That's why I know." The masked man's voice suddenly turned icy. "Humans will be swallowed by the embodiment of their own darkness." At that moment, the drones activated their scattershot function, engulfing the Strike in a web of crisscrossing emerald beams. Mu raised his shield, but it was an exercise in futility. One of the beams tore away the Strike's right arm, and another shot blew the left leg off at the knee. Something exploded inside the cockpit, and a piece of shrapnel stabbed Mu in the gut. Gritting his teeth against the pain, he took advantage of a momentary break in the attack to retreat, vowing that he would see Rau Le Creuset dead.

_**

* * *

Archangel**_**, Bridge

* * *

**

The ship rocked as a blast from its enemy's Gottfried cannons caused one of the _Archangel_'s own beam cannons to explode. Captain Murrue Ramius held onto the armrests of her command chair until the shaking subsided.

"Damage report!" she yelled out.

"Starboard Gottfried and portside Valiant have both been disabled," the response came up from the CIC. Murrue thought quickly, running through the weapons they still had available.

"Prepare a missile barrage; target the remaining Gottfried—"

"The Strike is returning to the ship," Miriallia Haw reported, looking up from her screen. "It looks badly damaged!" Murrue's breath caught for a moment, before she managed to calm herself.

_He's okay,_ she reminded herself. _He promised he'd come back safe. _True enough, Mu's face, partially hidden behind his flight helmet, appeared on the main viewscreen.

"Damn Le Creuset's new suit…" Murrue saw him cough and wince slightly. She wanted to run down to the hangar herself, to be sure that he was alright, but she knew that she needed to remain here, for the sake of the crew and the ship.

Besides, such an action would be a rather melodramatic display of affection. Given Mu's sense of humor, Murrue would never live it down.

"Report in and continue," she said in a level tone of voice. "Maintenance division, prepare emergency landing net; medical team, stand by."

"I'm sorry," Mu said on screen, as though disgusted with himself. Murrue shook her head slightly, letting him know he had done nothing wrong.

Amidst all the confusion, the bridge crew of the _Archangel_ had completely forgotten about their enemy, the dark ship waiting several kilometers away.

_**

* * *

Dominion,**_** Bridge

* * *

**

Unaware of the drama playing itself out on the other side of the battle, communications officer Fllay Allster was watching her very own nightmare tableau unfold around her. A little more than half an hour ago, ZAFT had pointed some sort of massive, dish-shaped array at the Earth Alliance fleet, and all the ships in its path had simply exploded, followed by the Ptolemaeus lunar base. They had no idea when the weapon would fire again; they wouldn't even know if it fired until something burst into flame.

"Commander" Muruta Azrael had pushed the _Dominion_ to ignore the ZAFT device and attack the _Archangel_, and the sister ships had been hammering each other with various weapons for the past few minutes. The last thing Fllay wanted was for the _Archangel_ to be destroyed. There were people on that ship that she desperately wanted to see again: Sai, Miriallia and Captain Ramius.

And somewhere out in that hellscape of burning ships and gunfire was Kira. Her Kira. He was the one she needed to see more than anything in the world right now.

Azrael's voice pulled Fllay from her thoughts. The _Archangel_ had stopped firing for a moment, and the lull in activity had not gone unnoticed by the man in blue.

"Now, fire!" Azrael shouted at Captain Natarle Badgiruel. The latter's face expressed deep conflict: the divide between her loyalty to her friends on the other ship, and her loyalty to the chain of command. For a long moment, Fllay held her breath as Natarle and Azrael stared at each other. Then the captain turned towards fire control, and Fllay felt cold horror wash over her as the crew prepared to fire the remaining Lohengrin cannon. She had seen the _Dominion_ use its positron cannons on a ZAFT ship earlier in the battle, and she knew that no vessel could stand up to a direct hit.

"No! Stop it!" she cried out, provoking curious looks from the bridge crew, a sympathetic glance from Natarle and a grimace of irritation from Azrael. While the outburst had some effect, it hadn't stopped anyone, and Fllay could hear a low hum reverberate through the hull as the antimatter cannon slid out of the _Dominion_'s right "leg" and began charging. Past fear now, Fllay grabbed her headset and scanned rapidly through radio frequencies, trying to reach the Lohengrin's intended target.

"_Archangel_, take evasive action! I repeat, take evasive—" Fllay was cut off as Commander Azrael grabbed her by the collar of her uniform and hauled her bodily out of the chair. His sapphire eyes burned with untold rage.

"You insubordinate _bitch!_" he shouted, and Fllay's vision blurred with pain as the butt of Azrael's pistol smashed into her cheekbone. The impact sent her flying across the bridge in the zero-G environment, slamming into a bulkhead and rebounding off. As Fllay's eyes refocused, she saw the commander pointing the gun at her head. The redhead knew a moment of panic as she stared down the barrel of the gun, and then Natarle grabbed Azrael by the wrist, pushing the weapon up toward the ceiling. Azrael's shot went wild, ricocheting off the walls and floor and causing the bridge crew to duck and seek cover.

"What are you doing?" Natarle shouted as she and Azrael wrestled over the gun. Somehow, the commander managed to free a hand and grab Natarle by the throat.

"What do you think I'm doing?" he shouted back. The crew rose from their hiding places, ready to help their captain, but she shook her head.

"All crew abandon ship!"

"Badgiruel!" Azrael shouted incredulously. He glanced around the bridge, and saw the crew members heading for the exit from the room. Fllay couldn't help but smile slightly. The look of shock and indignation on that slimebucket's face was priceless.

"You bastards!" the blue-clad sociopath shouted. Natarle pushed him back for a moment and made eye contact with Fllay.

"Get to the _Archangel_." Fllay was momentarily speechless. She had spoken to Natarle before the battle, expressing her wish to apologize to Kira and the others, but she still hadn't expected this. She opened her mouth to try to say something to Natarle, but the older woman simply nodded quickly. Fllay gave a slight nod in return, and then launched herself through the door, following several other crewmembers down the grey-paneled hallway.

The journey to the emergency escape shuttle was a blur to Fllay. She ran through clouds of acrid smoke, passed scorched bodies floating in the halls, and was nearly killed once when something exploded in front of her. Finally, she found herself in a miniature hangar, moving towards a grey, rectangular vehicle perhaps fifty feet in length. Fins on the back of the shuttle were already moving slightly; the engines already rumbling to life as she passed through the hatch and strapped herself into a seat.

Surrounded by strangers in a place she didn't know, Fllay Allster felt tears begin to form at the corners of her eyes.

* * *

"Don't play with me," Azrael hissed at Captain Badgiruel. "Open the door!" Despite the fact that he had shot her in the lower abdomen, the infuriating woman had still managed to seal off the bridge, trapping him in here. And in spite of the firearm pointed at her right now, she still managed to shrug off his authority. Her only response to Azrael's demand was to laugh. 

_I'll teach you to mock me,_ the leader of Blue Cosmos thought. He lowered his aim and shot Natarle in the left shin, the bullet punching through flesh and bone and eliciting a very satisfactory cry of pain. Turning away from the injured woman, Azrael looked through the bridge's windows, glaring out at the _Archangel. _He knew it was only a matter of time before the cursed ship opened fire and killed him.

"Not here; not now," he muttered to himself as he pushed off the floor and floated over to Fire Control. To his elated surprise, Azrael found that most of his work had already been done for him. The Lohengrin was still extended and fully charged. All he had to do was lock on and fire. "I can still win this," he said, a strange-sounding giggle escaping him. "I always win." Seeing what he was doing, Natarle began hauling herself up into a sitting position, but it was too late to stop him.

"You bastard!" she yelled, but Azrael paid her no heed. With one final key command, he sent a lethal stream of antimatter tearing through space, heading for the _Archangel._

**

* * *

Open Space

* * *

**

Mu was making his approach for docking when he saw the _Dominion_ release a shot from its remaining Lohengrin. The beam of swirling red-white fire, surrounded by crackling bolts of electricity, was heading directly for the _Archangel_'s bridge. The positron blast crossed thousands of meters in a fraction of a second; there was no time to evade it.

_And Murrue's on the bridge._

Mu La Flaga never questioned his next action. Not once did he think of his own safety as he throttled forward and hurled the Strike into the path of the attack, raising the beam shield and applying forward thrust to counter the inertia of the antimatter stream.

The anti-beam coating on the shield held an electromagnetic charge, projecting the magnetic field that scattered particle beams and made the shield work. The field had never been used to defend against positrons before, but there really wasn't another option at this point. The Strike was jolted violently as the attack hit the shield, but the field did its job, scattering the lethal particles in all directions. Several wisps of positrons struck the _Archangel_, vaporizing the laminated armor on contact but leaving the vital systems intact. Another diverted puff of antimatter hit the Strike in the face, blowing the G-weapon's head apart.

Still, slowly but surely the kinetic energy of the beam began to win out, and the positrons edged closer and closer to the shield itself. As more stray clumps of antimatter hit the Strike, the cockpit began to overheat. As display panels exploded and metal began to glow, Mu looked back toward the ship.

"Didn't I tell you I could make the impossible possible?" he said, chuckling slightly in spite of the situation. Mu wouldn't see Le Creuset dead, but he had done something far more important.

He had protected the woman he loved.

_**

* * *

Dominion**_**, Bridge

* * *

**

Azrael watched as the antimatter beam tapered off, and whatever had been blocking it exploded, spraying flame and shrapnel out into space. He grinned slightly.

But when the blast cleared, the _Archangel_ was still there. The terrorist leader's shock was only made worse by the laughter that erupted behind him.

"You lose, Azrael," Natarle said simply.

"Will you SHUT UP!?" He drew his pistol and shot her again, this time in the shoulder. Looking back toward the other ship, Azrael smoldered as he realized that he didn't know how to bring any of the _Dominion_'s other weapons online. "Damn it!" he screamed, throwing his pistol across the room.

_**

* * *

Archangel**_**, Bridge

* * *

**

Murrue stared out through the main windows, looking at the empty space where the Strike had been just moments ago.

_No,_ she thought. _That didn't just happen._ The normally brave captain found herself shaking her head in denial, tears flowing freely.

"You said you would return," she choked out. But the empty space out the window told a different story. Mu wasn't coming back. Murrue bent over for a moment, hugging herself as she processed the awful reality. But the more she thought about it, the more her sorrow was replaced with something else: something dangerous. When she looked up, Murrue's eyes were filled with tears, but her voice held white-hot rage. She didn't even look at Fire Control as she gave the next order. "Bring the portside Lohengrin online and FIRE!"

There was no mobile suit to save the _Dominion_, and when the _Archangel_ unleashed its own positron beam, the antimatter blast struck the dark ship's bridge head on. Muruta Azrael's madness ended as the _Dominion_'s bridge vanished in a blinding white fireball. The radiation flash from the blast vaporized the laminated armor and hull of the Earth Alliance vessel. Anything flammable ignited instantly, and as the ship's superstructure vaporized, its own stores of antimatter were released from their containers, contacting the remaining metal and setting off multi-kiloton secondary detonations.

The _Dominion_ didn't explode; it _became_ an explosion. In the space of a second, the entire battleship dissolved into a massive, roiling cloud of flame.

* * *

**Author's Note: When I mentioned the GENESIS beam, I described it as invisible. Since all of a laser's light waves are moving in the same direction and none of them reach your eye, you won't see a laser beam unless it's actually pointed at you when it fires. Also, gamma rays are higher frequency radiation than visible light, and are thus undetectable by the naked eye.**

**The beams that the beam rifles and Gottfrieds fire have been described as lasers in some fics, but since the beams move at sub-light velocity, I figured they're probably particle weapons. I did a bit of research on theoretical partical weapons, and I found that electrons (among other particles) could be employed as the weaponized particle. **

**I had the anti-beam coating on the beam shield be magnetic, because otherwise Mu's sacrifice would have been in vain, as the positron blast would have hit the shield, causing a rather spectacular fireball while sacrificing only a small amount of antimatter. The rest of the beam would pass through the explosion, strike the _Archangel, _and we'd be short one Gundam, one legged ship and several main characters. Magnetic fields are used to control antimatter in real life, so I figured that was how the shield worked. A magnetic field would also be useful for scattering other charged particles, like (possibly) electrons.**

**As always, reviews are welcome.**


	2. Caught in the Crossfire

Disclaimer: I still don't own _Gundam SEED_

This was supposed to be up at the same time as the other chapter, but I'm still figuring out how to do this. Sorry about how cut-and-paste the last chapter may have seemed. This is where it turns into a KxF story.

Part 2: Caught in the Crossfire

The escape shuttle rocked as a piece of debris struck its hull. Several of the crewmembers behind Fllay yelled curses at the pilot.

"Give me a break, alright! I don't even know where we're going!" The pilot inhaled sharply as a Moebius exploded in front of them. The GuAIZ that had destroyed the mobile armor paid little attention to the shuttle, sparing it a quick glance before firing its thrusters and flying out of view. "Where are the nearest friendly troops?"

"They're at the _Archangel_," Fllay interjected. Despite the fact that they had been firing on that ship only minutes ago, no one objected to her statement. "Any port in a storm" seemed to be the dominant philosophy in the cabin. As the pilot set a new course, something outside the shuttle drew Fllay's eye. Peering through the window next to her seat, the girl caught sight of a mobile suit, attached to some sort of small gunship, exchanging beam fire with a larger, darker-colored machine with a star-shaped device on its back. Fllay's heart leaped inside her when she recognized the gunship-mounted suit.

_Kira._

There had been a time when Fllay would have wanted nothing more than to see one of those beam shots connect; when she would have enjoyed seeing Kira vaporized. It had been a time when Fllay had blamed Kira for her father's death, and had wanted him to throw himself into battle; to balance the scales by giving his life for her. She had used every tool at her disposal, every kind word, every heart-melting smile, every seductive caress, to turn Kira into her personal killing machine.

But instead of revenge, Kira had given her something far more precious: a sympathetic ear, a kind heart, a warm embrace. He sat by her bedside when she was sick, let her lean on him when memories of her father became too much to bear, and stayed with her so she wouldn't be alone. She had slowly found herself focusing less on manipulating Kira and more on simply enjoying her time with him.

It had been too good to last, and they had been separated, first when Kira had ended their relationship, telling Fllay that they were wrong for each other, and then when he had gone MIA. Fllay had tried to see him before he left; she had wanted so badly to tell him how special he was to her, and when she was told that Kira had died, she had wanted to curl up in her bed, go to sleep and never wake up.

But Kira was alive, and when Fllay had found that out at Mendel it had made her happier than she had ever been. Even though he had been driven off by Azrael's demented servants, Kira had tried to reach her, and the knowledge that he cared even a little had filled Fllay's heart with joy, because she loved him. She really loved him.

So now, as Fllay watched Kira dodge shot after shot from his enemy's beam rifle, she felt afraid. She wasn't afraid that he would fail to protect her, or that he wouldn't kill his enemy. She was afraid that Kira would come to harm. Through the window, she saw the star-shaped part of the enemy MS break apart. The pieces descended on Kira's suit like a malevolent swarm of insects, and Fllay gasped as the space around him erupted with green fire.

"Kira!"

**

* * *

Open Space

* * *

**

"You again," Rau growled as the Providence sprayed bullets from its CIWS and used its rifle and DRAGOON pods to rain emerald particle beams on the Freedom. The angelic mobile suit drew its beam sabers, deflecting some of the beams while dodging others. The Freedom responded to the attack by activating the missile launchers on the METEOR unit it was attached to. Dozens of explosive projectiles issued from the machine and rushed toward the Providence. Rau signaled the drones, and they arrayed themselves in front of him, activating their scattershot and setting up a net of interlacing beams.

Not a single missile made it through.

"You're an annoying little bastard, aren't you?" the masked pilot said as he took careful aim. A precise shot from his beam rifle pierced the right METEOR cannon, and the Freedom ejected the weapon just before it exploded. It attempted to take aim with the other cannon, but Rau simply chuckled. In one fluid motion, the Providence extended its beam saber and cut away the remaining METEOR cannon. Rau backed off as the drones closed in on the Freedom once more.

* * *

"You're something that shouldn't even exist, boy!" the mocking voice came through the Freedom's com-link. Kira grimaced, doing his best to ignore his enemy. He knew Rau was trying to get inside his head, and he was determined not to give him the satisfaction of a response. Instead of responding verbally, Kira launched another volley of missiles from the METEOR. The funnel-shaped drones flashed into position and fired, destroying most of the missiles. The few that remained sped toward the Providence, but the dark machine swung its beam saber in a precise arc, destroying the explosives before they could touch the mobile suit. 

"If people found out about you, they would want to be like you; to be like your _kind,_" the icy voice taunted as the pods attacked again, moving into position, firing and retreating before they could be targeted. Kira drew both of Freedom's beam sabers and swung furiously to deflect the shots, but there were simply too many, and he was unable to keep some of the beams from striking the METEOR. "That's why your existence cannot be allowed!" The drones stopped harrying Kira and moved as one to surround him. Before he could get out of the way, a well-placed particle beam stabbed into the METEOR's left engine, and the Freedom shuddered from the small explosion.

_I'm not just an experiment._ Kira was sick of being viewed as an object, and while he had been determined not to give Le Creuset a response, the young coordinator simply didn't care at this point.

"I am not defined by my abilities alone!" he shouted, wrestling with the controls. He was trying to turn the damaged METEOR to use the remaining missiles, but it was a losing battle. And on the other end of the com-line, Rau simply laughed.

"Oh, and who's going to believe _that_ line?" Like a predator moving in for the kill, the Providence rushed at the Freedom, its beam saber flashing out and cutting the remaining METEOR engine in half. The dark suit then backed off as the Freedom's sensors alerted Kira to the fact that the drones were surrounding him again. As he tracked the pods on his CIS, he caught sight of an Earth Alliance escape shuttle. For reasons he would never understand, Kira focused his Gundam's cameras onto the shuttle and increased the magnification. Thoughts of the battle, the Providence and Rau Le Creuset faded from his mind, for Kira could see someone in the shuttle's forward window: a fair-skinned girl with scarlet hair and captivating blue-grey eyes. Kira had thought he'd lost her, but there she was, watching him through the glass, a worried expression on her beautiful face.

"Fllay?"

* * *

Behind his mask, Rau watched as the Freedom detached from the METEOR unit less than a second before the DRAGOON pods blew the damaged machine apart. He readied the Providence for the impending fight. Instead of attacking, however, the Freedom peeled away and rushed toward what appeared to be an escape shuttle. The masked pilot cocked an eyebrow. He could destroy his enemy, placing one beam shot through the G-weapon's cockpit and erasing Hibiki's mistake once and for all. But this, this was far too good an opportunity for Rau to pass up, especially as a lover of the theatre. 

_Let's see how you like watching your precious humans burn, Yamato._

Rau locked on to the shuttle and fired.

* * *

Kira saw the flash on the right side of his CIS, and realized that the Providence had opened fire. His blood chilled as he realized that the shot wasn't aimed at his Gundam. Even from almost a kilometer away, Kira could tell that the angle was wrong. 

The Providence had aimed for the shuttle.

_No._ Due to the distance between shooter and target, Kira had perhaps one second to intervene, and as he pushed the throttle as far forward as it would go, the only thing that went through his head was what was about to happen to Fllay. The electron beam could tear metal, superheat air and sear flesh until nothing but ash remained.

_No, no._

_NO!_

With milliseconds to spare, Kira thrust the Freedom's beam shield in front of the shuttle. The particle beam slammed into the shield, sending errant streams of electrons flying off in all directions. After the flash of impact had faded, Kira released the breath he had been holding and lifted the shield away.

Fllay was still there, safe and sound, her eyes glistening with tears as she looked out at the Freedom. The redhead reached up and pressed her hand against the window, and while Kira couldn't hear her across the vacuum, he could see her lips form his name. He felt his heart beat faster, and allowed himself a small smile.

* * *

Inside the cockpit of the Providence, Rau watched with amusement. The boy actually thought he had accomplished something. He figured he had saved the occupants of that shuttle. 

_This is priceless._

Rau knew something that Kira Yamato did not, and a positively demonic smile crept across his face as he savored the irony of the moment. What the pilot of the Freedom didn't realize was that when Rau targeted the shuttle, he had not merely fired a shot from the Judicium.

He had selected a new target for the drones.

* * *

Kira spotted movement at the top of one of his cockpit screens. A dark object was moving above the shuttle. 

It was one of the funnels.

In the time it took for Kira to see and recognize it, the drone had already maneuvered into position and taken aim. Coordinator reflexes notwithstanding, there were limits on what Kira was capable of, and in the time it took for him to blink, the pod's central electron cannon fired.

The emerald beam lanced out and impaled the escape shuttle, tearing through the center of the vessel. Jets of flame spouted from the entry and exit points, and the shuttle's hull bowed downward from the impact.

Kira felt his heart stop.

* * *

Fllay felt as though she had been hit by a car. Something slammed into her from behind, and the sound of a massive detonation set her ears ringing. Steel doors clamped shut, sealing the cabin off from the main explosion before it could do much damage, but the initial heat flash had burned into the engines, and they detonated a fraction of a second later. The shuttle's hull split open in several places, air rushing out into the vacuum, and smaller explosions stitched across the outside of the small craft. Pieces of the floor and walls broke open, and droplets of some translucent red fluid sprayed into the air. Arcs of megavoltage flashed through the cabin and showers of sparks burst from seemingly every surface as the massive electrical charge built up by the beam shot equalized violently. 

Time slowed for Fllay as the fluid and sparks mixed in the air less than ten feet away from her. She vaguely realized the fluid was fuel as it blossomed into a roaring fireball. Memories flashed before Fllay's eyes: bits of her life replaying as the explosion grew larger.

She was standing outside in the rain. They were burying Mommy, and Daddy was holding her hand, promising her that her mother was in a better place.

She was at her house, meeting Sai for the first time, listening as Daddy told her that she and the boy were to be married some day.

She was at one of her favorite restaurants, talking with Miriallia, both of them excited at being accepted into Heliopolis Technical University.

But one memory came through stronger than the rest: the memory of Kira and her, under the covers in his bed, lips locked together. In that moment, she had known what it really meant to be treasured by someone else, and it was this memory that Fllay Allster clung to, ever so tightly, as time sped back up and the fire came for her.

* * *

In the atmosphere, the blast from the shuttle's exploding engines would have been deafening. It would have shaken the earth beneath it; it would have cracked windowpanes a hundred feet away. In the atmosphere, the blast would have been deafening. 

But the silence was so much worse.

The absence of sound mocked Kira, as though suggesting that what he was seeing wasn't real; it dared him to deny what had just happened.

_She's fine,_ the silent blooming of fire and shrapnel seemed to say. _The shuttle didn't just split in half. She didn't just cease to exist._ But it was true, and as hunks of twisted metal slammed into the Freedom, Kira knew with horrible, crushing finality that he would never see Fllay again. Never again would he be able to see her smile; never again would he know the quiet comfort of falling asleep in her arms.

Kira Yamato broke out of his paralysis, his vision blurring with tears as he cried for his fallen angel.

"FLLAY!"

* * *

**Author's Note: I almost made myself cry while writing this chapter, which means one of two things.**

**A. I did a decent job writing this, or**

**B. It's just really easy to make me cry.**

**Hopefully, it's A.**


	3. Wrath

Disclaimer: I still don't own _Gundam SEED_ or any of the characters

Part 3: Wrath

Rau watched the Freedom carefully. The mobile suit hadn't moved since he had destroyed the shuttle. While Le Creuset hadn't intended it, the hail of shrapnel seemed to have incapacitated the "ultimate" coordinator. Frankly, he was somewhat disappointed. However, if the MS was out of action, Rau could afford to focus on other threats to his plans. Firing all thrusters, the Providence turned away from the Freedom and headed for the rogue battleship _Eternal._ The pink ship was one of three vessels that had the potential to destroy the GENESIS array, and it had to be neutralized. In addition, Rau knew for a fact that Lacus Clyne herself was in command of the ship.

_A pop star in command of a warship,_ he thought, shaking his head. _Humanity's madness knows no end._ Rau brought the Providence to a halt as two M1s swooped in to defend the pink ship. The DRAGOON pods launched, surrounded the first Astray and fired from all directions simultaneously. The Orb pilot didn't even have time to scream.

"It's a pity, really," Le Creuset said to himself as the drones tore the other Astray apart. "I've always liked her songs." Finished with the defenders, the pods attacked the _Eternal_ directly. "But the real world isn't as kind as the one in pop songs." The songstress' ship fired its one remaining beam cannon, but it couldn't hope to fend off the drones, and they opened fire, seeding explosions along the length of the vessel. Rau smiled as he aimed the Judicium directly at the ship's bridge.

_It's time for you to take your final bow, Miss Clyne._ Just as he was about to fire, however, an alarm warned Rau of an incoming attack. The Providence sprang back as twin streams of plasma fire streaked past it. Coming about, Le Creuset spotted the Freedom several hundred meters away, folding its Balaena plasma cannons back before spreading its HiMAT wings.

* * *

Inside the Freedom's cockpit, Kira's pupils had contracted to pinpoints, and his eyes had dulled from their normal amethyst shade to an almost grey color. He opened a channel to the Providence. 

"You," he said. His voice expressed almost no emotion, more a threatening exhalation than anything else. "Only you!" Kira yelled, and the Freedom rushed forward. The Providence set its DRAGOON pods on Kira, but his nervous system had reached an entirely different state now. With heightened reflexes, the ultimate coordinator dodged every shot, moving fast enough that he could afford to return fire. Green bursts streaked out from the Freedom's Lupus beam rifle, and two of the drones were blown apart. The Providence backed away, unleashing particle beams from its rifle and shield cannons.

"Yell all you want; it won't make any difference now!" Rau shouted back. The Freedom dodged all shots and vaporized another pod. The Providence extended its beam saber and charged. The Freedom mimicked the action with its own saber, and the two machines crashed into one another, blinding light flaring out from where their swords clashed. "It's all predestined: a road that must be traveled, even though we all know where it ends." The mobile suits dueled, slashing and stabbing with their weapons, but neither seemed able to score a decisive blow. "Justice and faith, ignorance and escapism. The refusal to know, to listen. That is the final ending, and there's no way to stop it now!" Le Creuset was laughing as the machines pushed away from each other. "Death naturally follows such sickness," he said. "Humans deserve to be destroyed!" The pods attacked again, and again the Freedom dodged, opening fire and destroying one more funnel.

"That is a twisted perversion of the truth!" Kira shouted back, and Rau laughed again.

"This is how humans are, Kira." The drones moved in again.

"You're wrong!" Kira trained the Lupus on another pod and blew it apart, but the Providence added its rifle and shield guns to the volley being loosed by the remaining six pods. Kira raised the Freedom's shield and backed up slightly. "Humans are not like that."

"Why am I wrong?" Rau's voice was level again; confident. "Their eyes and hearts are filled with only hatred, and their hands only know how to pull a trigger. In this world, what do you believe?" Kira shook his head. As much as he wanted to deny it, there was a certain twisted logic to what the Providence's pilot was saying, especially considering the blind hatred of those like Blue Cosmos and Zala's followers.

Freedom jolted around him, bringing Kira back to reality, and he realized that Rau had taken advantage of his confusion, targeting a precise beam rifle shot on the Freedom's right knee. The electron beam tore through the unarmored joint and the ensuing explosion blew the Gundam's lower leg off.

"What do we believe in? Why do we believe?" Rau continued to taunt Kira, managing to unsettle the boy enough to fire another pinpoint shot, striking the beam shield at an angle and knocking it from the Freedom's hand.

"You don't know what you're talking about!" Kira charged, and the mobile suits locked sabers again. On the other end of the radio, Le Creuset laughed again.

"Of course I don't know! Humans only know what they think they know." The Providence kicked the Freedom in the chest, pushing it away. The DRAGOON pods moved in again. "Do you really want to keep suffering, lying to yourself, saying 'one day they'll understand'?" Kira could hear Rau snort contemptuously on the com-link. "How long have you been fighting, fooled by this sweet drug?"

Another drone fired at the Freedom from below. Kira sidestepped and returned fire, destroying the machine. As the explosion cleared, Kira realized that he and Rau had traveled quite a distance since the start of their battle, and were now fighting above the kilometers-wide GENESIS dish. Cold laughter issued from the communications speaker again.

"The irony of the situation is beautiful when you think about it," Rau said. "You're fighting so hard to stop me, but no matter what happens now, I win." Rau's laughter rose to a level that bespoke mental instability. "When Jachin self-destructs, GENESIS will fire at the Earth! There's no way to stop it now!"

_GENESIS will fire at Earth._ Kira knew about the massive gamma ray laser, and he knew that if it struck the planet, it would superheat the crust, searing hundreds of square kilometers of land. Worse still, the atmosphere would scatter the gamma rays. If the array was fired at Washington, it would bathe half of North America in deadly radiation.

"The tears and wailing of the victims will spark the flames of war anew! The day of reckoning, prophesized by so many different humans through time, will arrive!" The Providence opened fire with rifle and shield guns, blowing away the Freedom's right arm and depriving it of its beam rifle. "Mankind will burn in the fires of hate; you'll all die, you and your friends!" That was it. Rau had unintentionally told Kira exactly what he needed to hear.

The teen's mind filled with images of those he cared for: Athrun fighting beside Kira despite how they had come to blows in the past, Tolle defending him after finding out that he was a coordinator, Lacus helping him regain his strength after he had been wounded in battle, and Fllay surprising him in the pilot's ready room, giving Kira his very first kiss.

Humanity was capable of terrible things, but there was so much more to people than that.

"This world is still worth protecting!" Kira shouted as his hands flew over the controls, combining the Freedom's beam sabers in the remaining hand, forming a lethal beam staff. The young pilot fired the mobile suit's thrusters and rushed forward, catching Le Creuset off guard and slicing away the Providence's shield arm. The dark suit retreated, summoning its drones to defend it. The five surviving funnels sprayed the advancing Freedom with particle beams as the Providence fired its Judicium. One shot struck the Freedom's chest, damaging the suit's pectoral vents, and another beam blew the mobile suit's head apart, but Kira didn't care. The few secondary cameras were all he needed to close with the Providence, ignoring the pods entirely.

Normally, Kira took care to disable enemy mobile suits, firing for the limbs or head and leaving their pilots unharmed. But there would be no disabling strike this time; there would be no mercy for Rau Le Creuset.

Releasing a furious battle cry, Kira rammed the double beam saber directly through the Providence's cockpit. The dark suit's engines flickered and died just as Kira's CIS alerted him to an explosion from with Jachin Due. As the massive gout of flame erupted from the central hangar, a beam of searing light blasted up from the opening at the center of the GENESIS dish, directly below Kira and Rau.

The Freedom dove to the side as the pillar of white-hot energy incinerated the Providence and its mad pilot. The beam struck the relatively small reflecting mirror opposite the dish and bounced back, showering every inch of the main dish and charging the material. Caught in the light, Freedom's HiMAT wings burned away, and pieces of the cockpit exploded around Kira. He closed his eyes and waited for the end. He had failed.

But the main dish never unleashed its invisible death ray. Before the laser could be fired, a truly nightmarish explosion went off inside GENESIS, shattering the dish and causing the rest of the weapon system to burst open, vomiting towering masses of flame into the vacuum.

* * *

**Author's Note: This is the last of the chapters with the "novelized episode" format. The next one will pick up after Kira has been found by Athrun and Cagalli and is back aboard the _Archangel._**

**You'll notice that I downgraded the power of the GENESIS array significantly. This was because I highly doubted that you could generate anywhere _near_ the necessary levels of gamma rays using nukes. A matter-antimatter bomb would probably do the job, but nukes would be easier to make, and if Zala fired the array multiple times at different locations on the Earth, he could accomplish the devastation he was looking for.**


	4. Convalescence

Disclaimer: Dr. Kari Morino and Ensign Roger Doolittle are my creations. I don't own anything else.

First of all, thanks to all my reviewers! Knowing someone else is going to read my work can make me incredibly nervous, since I never know whether I've done a good enough job, so thank you for your support and encouragement.

Part 4: Convalescence

Kira couldn't sleep. He had turned the lights in his quarters off, and was currently lying on his bed, but his body simply refused to rest. He supposed it could be the aftereffects of the battle; he had only been back on board the _Archangel_ for about two hours. It could also be some sort of trauma from being caught in the flash above the GENESIS dish. Logically, his fatigued yet sleepless state could be due to any number of things, but deep down Kira knew what was tormenting him. He just didn't want to look it in the face.

He was still trying to fall asleep fifteen minutes later when the door to his room slid open. Kira lifted his head off the pillow just enough to see his sister enter his room, the door closing behind her. Cagalli had changed out of her flight uniform, and was now dressed in her trademark red shirt and beige pants. She knelt down by the bed and put a hand on Kira's shoulder.

"Hey," she said gently. "Are you alright?" He looked at her for a moment.

"No," Kira said simply. He opened his mouth to continue, but nothing came out. Cagalli raised her hands apologetically.

"Don't force yourself to talk if you're not ready," she said quickly, and then softened her tone before continuing. "If you need to be by yourself for now, that's okay." Kira smiled at his sister.

"Thanks," he said. She patted him on the back.

"Athrun and I are going to be in the mess hall, so if you need to talk to somebody, you know where we are, okay?" Kira nodded as Cagalli stood up and left.

Kira didn't need to talk to someone. He needed Fllay back. Kira couldn't say he had always enjoyed his time with her: sometimes she had asked him to kill, and he hated doing that. But when all was said and done, when the battle was over and he had to face what he had done, Fllay would always be there to kiss away his tears and sleep beside him, keeping his nightmares away.

Sometimes, Kira had thought that she was angry at him over something, or that he upset her somehow, and he had ended their relationship because of it; because of that unknown thing that was wrong between them. Maybe he had made a mistake, but what hurt the most was the knowledge that he would never find out now. For now, all Kira wanted to do was lie here, in the bed they had shared, where he could allow himself to cry.

* * *

About an hour later, Kira found himself walking toward the mess hall. The ship's elevator took him down a floor from crew quarters to an area just behind the hangar. The cafeteria and the infirmary were both located close to the hangar for the sake of convenience. Pilots returning from sorties could be treated and deck workers getting off their shift could eat without either having to move very far. On the other hand, Murdoch had once told Kira that he suspected that the fact that medical and dining facilities were so close to each other had more to do with the questionable nature of the cafeteria food than with anybody's convenience. 

In spite of the situation, Kira actually managed a small chuckle as he remembered the deck chief's joke. Walking a little bit farther took him by the entrance to the infirmary. There was a digital notepad affixed to the wall just outside, listing patients. It seemed that due to the chaotic nature of the battle, the _Archangel_ had been playing host to injured from both sides of the conflict, as the scrolling list of names on the readout listed soldiers from ZAFT and the Earth Alliance, organized by ship. Several pilots had apparently been recovered from damaged mobile suits off the ZAFT ships _Voltaire_ and _Oberon_, and there were two or three Strike Dagger pilots from the EAS _Churchill_, as well as…

Kira was sure he'd made a mistake, and tapped at the controls of the notepad, scrolling back up to make sure. He had not been mistaken; the digital readout couldn't be clearer.

There were three injured people from the EAS _Dominion_.

Kira knew that he was probably only setting himself up for a crushing disappointment, but he had to be sure. As he passed into the infirmary, the door sliding out of his way, Kira looked frantically back and forth between the two rows of beds that lined the long central area, inwardly cursing himself for not seeing if there was a way of telling where each ship's crewmen had been placed. Frustrated, he finally came to a stop in the middle of the room, pausing to catch his breath. The room branched off at the far end, and Kira was wondering whether he should go left or right when he heard a voice from the bed next to him.

"Looking for somebody?" The voice belonged to a young man perhaps a year older than Kira, with spiked up blonde hair and rather odd, yellow eyes. The soldier was in a full-body cast, but he seemed more irritated than anything else. Kira hated having to stop searching, but any help was welcome.

"Yeah," he said. "Do you have any idea where I could find somebody from the Earth forces?"

"I think we all ended up on the left side of the room," the soldier replied. "I guess they decided to split us and the ZAFT boys up, feelings being what they are."

"Thanks." Kira nodded and was about to leave, but he had to ask. "What exactly happened to you?" The patient rolled his eyes.

"Some jackass in a G-weapon blew the gun-arm and head off my Dagger," he said with a grimace. "I tried to fall back but I couldn't see where I was going." He looked at Kira. "In case you wanted to know, hitting a battleship at eighty miles per hour really hurts."

Kira quickly thanked the soldier for his help and proceeded down the left branch of the infirmary. It looked basically the same as the central room, with rows of beds along the wall and data readouts at the head of each bed for displaying medical information. Kira passed over one soldier with a bandaged, lacerated thigh, another with gauze over his left eye, and then stopped in his tracks.

Fllay Allster was in one of the last beds in the row. Bandages covered the right side of her face, and her right arm was in a cast. An intravenous line ran into her left arm, and electrodes ran from her forehead and from underneath the hospital gown she was dressed in, attaching to wall-mounted equipment. Kira walked slowly to the side of her bed, reluctant to get closer; he half-believed that she would vanish if he touched her. He wasn't sure how long he stood there, a maelstrom of emotions churning inside him, before one of the white-clad medical personnel approached him.

"I'd rather you don't touch her." The doctor was a blue-eyed woman in her early thirties whose dark brown hair was pulled into a long braid behind her head. "She's rather fragile at this point; we just got her out of the OR about twenty minutes ago." She noticed the way Kira was looking at the injured girl. "Do you know her?" Kira nodded slightly, never taking his eyes off Fllay.

"I thought she was dead," he replied in a very quiet voice. The doctor nodded.

"She was, actually, for about forty-five minutes." She saw Kira's face darken, and gave him a sympathetic smile. "I'm sorry for not introducing myself. I'm Dr. Kari Morino, but you can just call me Kari. I'm in charge of this particular patient, along with…a couple of others." She indicated the full infirmary with a wave of her hand. "Needless to say, we're a little shorthanded here."

"How," Kira was still struggling with his own disbelief. "How did you find her?"

"Well, I don't know the whole story, but the Astray teams off the _Kusanagi_ started running search and rescue operations as soon as the fighting started to quiet down. As far as I know they found her and these other two," at this Kari indicated two similarly battered men in nearby beds, "inside an escape shuttle registered to the _Dominion_."

"But that shuttle was destroyed," Kira replied. Kari just shrugged.

"Its beacon must still have been active." Apparently, Kira's confusion showed on his face, because the doctor hastened to explain. "Shuttles and lifepods have emergency beacons so they can be located. It's pretty necessary in case of mechanical malfunction or engine failure."

"Engine failure," Kira repeated, and felt a bitter laugh escape him. He looked back at the sleeping Fllay. "But if she was already…" he didn't want to say it or even think about it, so he rephrased his question. "Why'd you bring her in?"

"Pilots are trained not just to look for survivors, but to also check for deceased that might be resuscitated; the cold and lack of oxygen keeps cellular and bacterial decay from taking place, so our only worry is tissue damage from ice crystals." She gave a wry half-smile, and nodded at Fllay. "With this one, resuscitation was the easy part. Her heart was undamaged and the tissue freezing hadn't reached the internal organs, so all we had to do was start the blood circulating, throw in some free-radical scavengers and epinephrine, raise the body temperature and there you have it. The really hellish bit was all the perimortem physical trauma."

Kira hadn't understood all of what he'd heard, but that got through.

"Is she going to be alright?" Kari sighed.

"She's got burns of varying degrees over about half of her body and quite a few broken bones. Blunt force trauma, I'm guessing overpressure from an explosion, broke her spinal cord just below the rib cage and damaged one of her lungs." Kira took a deep breath, thinking of just how tenuous Fllay's grip on life was. Kari was proving to be a most perceptive person, and she rushed to clarify things when she saw how upset she had made Kira.

"I didn't mean to give you too bleak a picture here; we can fix all of that. The bones have been set, the lung wasn't too badly injured and it should heal on its own, the burns are being treated and we've braced the spinal column and are applying guided cell growth to it. The only thing we're really worried about is brain damage, and we'll know more about that when she wakes up…" Dr. Morino trailed off, or perhaps Kira just wasn't listening to her. He felt an incredible sense of relief at knowing that Fllay was alive, but at the same time, it frightened him to know that she might not be alright after all. After everything they had been through, it was awful to think that she still might not pull through.

"Sir?" Kira looked up. Kari indicated Fllay. "I have other patients that need attention, but if you want to stay here, I can have a chair brought in." Kira nodded.

"If it's not too much trouble," he said, and Kari gave him a warm smile.

"Not a problem, and don't worry about her; I know what I said, but please don't worry about it. I'm sure she'll be fine." Kira mentioned that he was going to eat first, and then headed toward the exit. In spite of the worry he'd felt earlier when brain damage was mentioned, Kira was doing his best to maintain a positive attitude, at least for Fllay's sake. As he passed the soldier in the full-body cast, he paused.

"Uh…" he said, pointing at the patient.

"Roger," the soldier replied. "Did you find who you were looking for?'

"Yeah, I did, and I just wanted to say thanks."

"No problem, man." Kira started to walk away, but turned back at the door.

"Oh, and I'm sorry about what I did to your Dagger." With that, Kira left the infirmary.

"Sorry about…Oh, it is _on_ now! I swear to God, as soon as I get out of this thing, we are having a rematch!" Kira actually managed to smile at Roger's bravado as he headed for the mess hall to see Athrun and Cagalli.

* * *

About an hour later, when Kira came back to the infirmary, he found Dr. Morino standing over Fllay's bed. His momentary worry dissolved when the doctor pointed to Kira and then looked down at her patient. "Your visitor's back," she said quietly, at which point Fllay turned her head and looked at Kira, and his heart swelled when he saw how her face lit up when she saw him. 

Unmindful of who was watching, Kira hurried over and knelt by her bedside, his eyes growing hot with tears.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry I wasn't watching out for you, I let this happen and—." He meant to say more, but Fllay shook her head fiercely, and looked as though she might cry herself. Kira grew a little nervous as to why she wasn't speaking, but Kari stepped in again.

"She can't talk at the moment," the doctor said quickly. "Your friend is suffering from a trauma-induced form of aphasia. I've already explained it to her, but basically, her vocal cords are working, but a part of her brain associated with speech was damaged by ice crystals while she was in space. The good news is that we ran a couple simple thought and memory tests while you were gone, and she is in full possession of all her mental faculties."

"Is this permanent?" Dr. Morino responded to Kira's question by shaking her head.

"Not in this case," she said. "A scan I took with a portable MRI device shows that the brain is working around the damaged area; it's really just a question of how long that will take. Until then we can't really do anything." Kari took that opportunity to walk away and speak to another medical technician, leaving the two teenagers alone.

Looking around, Kira noticed the chair Dr. Morino had offered him earlier, and he pulled it up beside Fllay's bed. Looking back at her again, he brushed an errant strand of crimson hair out of her face. She turned her ocean-colored eyes to meet his, and they shared a moment of quiet intimacy.

"I missed you," Kira said quietly, and Fllay nodded.

_I missed you too._

Kira saw her moving her free hand, and he reached out and interlaced his fingers with hers. Fllay shut her eyes, and Kira leaned over and laid his head on her shoulder, and was finally able to fall asleep.

* * *

**Author's Note: This is my first completely original chapter, and it was incredibly nerve-wracking for me to write, so please tell me if it came out okay.**

**The word convalescence refers to the period of time after trauma or illness during which a person rests and heals. It's obviously meant to refer to Fllay, but it also refers to Kira's mental state, as well as to the tone of the chapter, which starts out very dark, and gets sweeter (and even funny at points) toward the end.**

**While I was proofreading this, it hit me that Dr. Morino's first name, Kari, is in fact "Kira" with the "i" and the "a" switched around. This was not intentional, and was actually kind of embarassing for me to find out. Roger is a character I came up with for the possible sequel to this story, and I thought it would be funny to give him a cameo here.**

**As to how Fllay survived, I reworked the shuttle explosion slightly to make it survivable. The hull tore open, meaning that the air would rush out, and the lack of oxygen would snuff the fire before it could incinerate Fllay. Yes, she was exposed to space, but contrary to what you see in sci-fi movies, flesh doesn't flash-freeze when exposed to space. Vacuum actually has very low thermal conductivity, so you don't lose heat that fast in space, which is what caused Fllay to be chilled and slightly frosted, rather than becoming a popsicle. People have been successfully revived after forty-five minutes, and the cases usually involve freezing water, so the cold actually helped rather than harming. Free-radical scavengers are a real thing (used to neutralize the dangerous free radicals released when a body dies) but guided cell growth is my own creation. Basically, it involves application of stem cells and growth factors. I figure by the time we can build something as ridiculously complex as a mobile suit, medical technology will have come quite a way as well.**

**Anyway, tell me whether I screwed it up or did well.**


	5. Saying What Matters

Disclaimer: I don't own _Gundam SEED_ or any of its characters. If I did, it might have ended like this...

Part 5: Saying What Matters

Three days had passed, and the _Archangel_ was almost home. In another twenty-four hours they would dock at Orb, and the crew and passengers would get some much-needed rest.

_Well,_ Cagalli thought to herself, _that's the idea, anyway._ Kira didn't seem to be resting.

At first, when he had found out that the girl, Fllay, was alive, he'd seemed both relieved and happy. It was as though a missing piece of him had returned with her. Cagalli wasn't sure exactly why her brother was so attached to the redhead, as her own memories of Fllay weren't that pleasant; the girl had broken up rather angrily with someone else to be with Kira, and had seemed a bit possessive of him. Of course, Cagalli had to admit, some of her feelings were due to the fact that, before she had known Kira was her brother, she had thought he was kind of cute and had been a little jealous of Fllay. Not that Kira was _ever_ going to find that out. He'd never stop teasing her.

Regardless of her past opinions, if this girl made Kira happy, Cagalli wasn't going to stand in their way.

But that was just it: Kira didn't seem that happy today. Cagalli had come to the observation deck to look out at the Earth for a while and relax, but when she came in she discovered her brother sitting in a corner, not looking out through the windows but staring at something in his hand. Cagalli took a few steps forward, and realized that Kira was holding a silver ring. He took the tiny object from his palm and held it between his thumb and forefinger, not so much looking at it as looking _through_ it, as though the ring were a magic mirror from which he sought an answer.

"Alright," Cagalli said, breaking the silence. "What's bothering you?" Kira looked up and then indicated the ring.

"Lacus gave me this before the battle," he said. Cagalli nodded slowly. She hadn't actually seen Lacus giving him the ring, so it could mean anything, but the pink-haired singer had been giving off some not-so-subtle hints that she saw Kira as more than just a friend. "She asked me to bring it back to her," he said softly. Cagalli walked over and sat down beside Kira.

"There's more to it than just the ring," she said. It wasn't a question. Kira looked over at her.

"I kissed her," he said. "And now I don't know whether it was a mistake." Cagalli was getting a little frustrated.

"What do you mean you don't know if it was a mistake?" Her tone of voice was a little harsher than she'd meant for it to be, and Cagalli had to remind herself that her brother could get upset easily. "I just mean…well…how do you feel about her?" Kira took a deep breath before speaking.

"She helped me," he said. "After Athrun and I almost killed each other, she took me in and cared for me. I was so confused, about the war, who I should be fighting; about everything, really." Kira paused for a moment, deep in thought. "Lacus helped me put myself back together, and I'll always be grateful to her for that. But Fllay and I…" Kira stopped, still staring at the ring, and then shook his head in confusion. "I've always wanted to be together with Fllay, ever since I met her back at school, although I was always too shy to say anything to her." Cagalli laughed a little.

"Well, you obviously got over _that_," she said with a smile. Kira smiled a little in return, but it faded and his gaze turned wistful when he started talking again.

"Actually, Fllay helped me too. When we first landed in the desert, I…a lot of people had been killed, and I was in a bad place. Fllay was there for me, and…I don't know. Things happened kind of fast between us." Cagalli didn't say anything, but she had a pretty good idea as to what "things happened kind of fast" meant. If she had only been able to go on what Kira had just told her, Cagalli would probably have said that a crush followed by a one-night stand was not the basis of a real relationship, but the hours her brother spent in the infirmary with Fllay, gently stroking her hair while she slept, indicated that things between them had gone way past that point.

"I think I see your problem," she said, and Kira sighed.

"I'm just tired of hurting people." Cagalli nodded.

"Why don't you talk to Lacus about this?" When Kira gave her a puzzled look, she pointed out the observatory windows. Following his sister's pointing finger, Kira saw the _Eternal_ looming just outside.

* * *

Perhaps ten minutes later, a small shuttle from the pink ship entered the _Archangel_'s hangar. The hatch slid open and Lacus Clyne, pink princess of the PLANTs, emerged, her white dress and the way she hovered for a moment in the low-gravity environment lending her an angelic presence. One of Murdoch's men stretched out a hand and helped Lacus down to the floor. She nodded and smiled in thanks, but then she saw Kira entering the hangar, and her baby blue eyes seemed to shine even brighter. 

"Kira!" She smiled and ran over to him, wrapping the brunette in a tight embrace. He hugged her in return, but pulled away after a moment.

"Lacus," he said reluctantly. "Can we talk for a moment?" The pink-haired coordinator's expression shifted as she quickly realized something was bothering Kira. She gently took his hand and led him out of the hangar; Lacus had been on the _Archangel_ a few times before, and she knew that Kira liked to go to the observation deck when he was troubled. She held his hand as they walked down the corridors deep within the ship, neither of them saying a word until they reached the room they sought. When they finally arrived, they spent a moment looking out through the windows, admiring the Earth, which now filled most of the view; very few stars remained visible beyond the curve of the planet. It was odd to be in the same room he had just been talking to his sister in, but it was the one place on the ship other than his quarters where he felt like he was away from the war.

"What did you need to talk to me about?" At Lacus' question, Kira finally shifted his gaze away from the windows and turned to face her.

"Well, it's about Fllay," he said. Lacus nodded.

"I heard she was alive. How is she?" Kira smiled a little.

"She's doing well, considering what happened to her." He paused for a moment, thinking before continuing. "I was thinking about when you gave me your ring, and about how I kissed you." Lacus blushed slightly at the memory. It had just been a kiss on the cheek, but nevertheless, it was probably the most overt gesture of affection Kira had ever shown to her. But Lacus remembered that he had said that this was about Fllay, and she could infer what he was trying to say by bringing up the time she gave him her ring.

"Do you love her?" she asked gently. Kira opened his mouth to answer, but shut it again, afraid of saying the wrong thing. Lacus continued with what she had started to say. "If you do love her, then you need to stay with her. If I remember correctly, she doesn't have any family left, and she's going to need someone to be there, to help her get better."

"But, Lacus," Kira wasn't used to talking about things like this. "I do care about you, a lot." Lacus' smile was gentle, yet at the same time it held such sadness.

"But it's not the same as the way you care about Fllay," she said softly. Kira hesitated for a moment, but finally nodded.

"It's just that I don't want to hurt you either," he said, and he wasn't just trying to be nice. Lacus had suffered just as much as Fllay had. She had lost her father, had been hunted like a criminal by ZAFT forces, and had been pushed into battle, the very thing she hated most. The thought of causing her more pain was what had made Kira so reluctant to have this conversation in the first place.

"Kira, it would hurt so much more if you stayed with me just to be polite," she said. "But I love that you care." He managed a smile, and Lacus pressed a tender kiss against his forehead. "Just remember that if you ever need anyone, I'll be here."

"I will," Kira said, and for the first time that day, he smiled warmly.

* * *

Kira spent some time with Lacus, Cagalli, Athrun and Captain Ramius, discussing possibilities for post-war relations between the Earth Alliance and ZAFT. Politics, however, was not something Kira was particularly fond of, and he eventually found his way back to the infirmary. The young coordinator's arrival, however, did not go unnoticed. 

"The day of reckoning is coming," Roger stated, nodding confidently. "You just wait and see." Kira looked at the Earth Forces pilot for a moment. Ever since finding out that Kira was the one who had disabled his mobile suit, Roger had been promising payback every time he saw him.

"Should I be worried about any of these threats?" The Dagger pilot put on a thoughtful expression for a moment.

"No," he said decisively. "But I plan to complain about this as long as I have the excuse of being bedridden, because as soon as this cast comes off I'll have to actually _back up_ the trash-talking I do, and my success rate with that is kind of mixed."

"Okay," Kira said quickly, turning from Roger and heading into the left wing of the infirmary. Most of the beds were empty now, their inhabitants having recovered enough to return to their quarters, and the remaining patients were asleep, allowing Kira a measure of privacy as he found his way to the now familiar bedside. Fllay was looking up at the ceiling, lost in thought, but she turned her head to look at Kira when he sat down beside her. "Hi, Fllay." She smiled faintly, and then gave Kira a pleasant surprise.

"Hi, Kira," she said. It had been a long while since he'd heard her voice, and the welcome sound made Kira's heart beat faster. After a moment, however, he realized that Fllay wasn't smiling. In fact, she looked very worried.

"What's the matter?" he asked, reaching out and touching her cheek. Fllay had been looking into Kira's eyes, but she turned her gaze away when he touched her, and Kira could see tears beginning to form at the affectionate gesture. She didn't look back at him when she spoke again.

"Kira, when you broke up with me, was it because you didn't care for me?" Kira leaned forward, trying to make eye contact with her again.

"No," he said. "I just thought you were mad at me." He said the last bit in a tone that suggested he thought the notion ridiculous, but Fllay cringed at the statement, and the tears that had been gathering in her eyes began to run down her cheeks.

"I was," she said ever so softly. "I was so angry at you, just like after my dad died."

"But you apologized for what you said then…" Kira began, but Fllay didn't let him finish.

"But I wasn't really sorry," she said, looking at him now and crying openly. "I was still so mad at you; I heard you were best friends with one of the enemy pilots and I thought you let my father die because of that." She squeezed her eyes shut for a few seconds, perhaps trying to regain control of herself, but when she opened them again, it was clear that she was just as upset as ever. "I thought the only way I could forgive you was if you were dead, if you died protecting me." Kira was shocked at how deep Fllay's anger had gone, but at the same time, he felt that he understood it better than she knew.

"I was wrong," she hastened to say, doing her best to speak clearly through her tears. "You didn't need to be forgiven, because you didn't do anything wrong. It just took me a long time to realize that." Fllay was shaking now, her body wracked with shudders as she cried. "I'm sorry," she choked out. "I'm so sorry, Kira." She couldn't speak anymore, so Kira wrapped his arms around her, being careful of her injuries, and held her while she cried.

_She's going to need someone to be there, to help her get better._ Lacus had been absolutely right, although not in the way Kira had originally thought. He didn't like the memory he was about to bring up, but he felt it was something Fllay needed to hear.

"Did they ever tell you what happened when I went MIA?" At Kira's words, Fllay lifted her tear-streaked face to look at him. She shook her head. "Athrun and I were fighting," he continued. "I had killed one of his friends, and he had killed Tolle. We were both beyond angry at that point." He paused. "As much as I hate to admit it, I _wanted_ to kill Athrun back then, and I think he felt the same way." He refocused on Fllay. "We've all done bad things. What matters is that we recognize our mistakes and try to make things right." Kira reached out and gently brushed away Fllay's tears. "You did that, and whatever you did in the past, I won't hold it against you." Fllay took a few more shaky breaths as she smiled at Kira and rubbed her eyes with her free hand. Then she leaned against him, resting her head on his shoulder. They stayed that way for several minutes before Fllay spoke.

"I love you, Kira," she said against his shoulder, her voice so quiet it was almost a whisper. She moved in his arms, bringing her head up and looking into his eyes. "I really love you." She couldn't speak the question that went with those words, but her eyes asked it for her.

_Do you love me back? Can you love me after all that's happened?_

* * *

Kira looked away from her, and Fllay felt a piece of her heart begin to collapse. For so long now, she had lived in a dark place, and Kira had been the light at the end of the tunnel. But if Kira didn't love her in return, if the light went out… 

"I thought about you while you were gone," he said, bringing his eyes to meet hers again. "I felt awful when I lost you at Mendel; I was so upset that when I looked at Lacus I saw you instead. I was so worried that you would get hurt, and when I thought you had died out there, I...well, I felt like I wanted to die too." Kira blushed slightly, and Fllay realized that it must be hard for him to talk openly about things like this. She remembered that he had always been shy at school, hurriedly looking away when she caught him stealing glances at her. She smiled at the memory, and at the realization of what Kira was trying to say.

Just as she had been unable to ask whether he loved her, Kira wasn't ready to speak aloud how he felt. It didn't matter, though, because Fllay could see it in the warmth of his eyes, and when she leaned in and covered his mouth with hers, she could feel it in the way his lips moved against her own. Kira did love her.

In the weeks and months to come, there would be much to do. The Blue Cosmos members infesting the Earth Alliance would have to be tracked down and arrested, wherever they had gone to hide. A new ZAFT chairman would need to step into office, and Orb would need to start rebuilding itself.

But for Kira and Fllay, those things mattered little. Despite personal mistakes, anger and the horrors of war, they were together again, and they would have another chance at happiness.

As Fllay buried her head against Kira's chest, she found that she was crying again. But now, for the first time in a very long time, there was not a trace of sadness in her tears.

The End

* * *

**Author's Note: This last chapter was the most difficult for me to write, but it was also probably the most rewarding, and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it.**

**Lacus features in this chapter, and it was difficult for me to write her, for fear of presenting her as too perfect. I tried to show that she does feel sadness and that she is human, and I hope I did her justice.**

**Kira's inability to say that he loves Fllay is not meant to indicate that he doesn't love her. It just seemed to me from watching the shows that he kept things pretty close to the vest in terms of romance. I just figured he's really not used to talking about things like this. On a related note, I hope Kira doesn't come off as emotionally weak in this chapter. I was trying to show that he is genuinely confused and conflicted about his feelings toward Lacus and Fllay.**

**Finally, thanks go out to all my reviewers. I can honestly say that I wouldn't have been able to finish this story without you.**


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